as long as i gaze on waterloo sunset

"waterloo sunset" by the kinks (covered by ethan hawke) & the movie juliet, naked

In case you missed it on Instagram, I announced some VERY exciting news last week! Love in the Time of Serial Killers and With Love, from Cold World are both going to be published in the UK/Commonwealth by Transworld/Penguin Books! LITTOSK will be released later this month, and Cold World will be released in early August 2023 around the same time as it’s out in the States.

And, equally as exciting, this felt like the absolute perfect opportunity to tell you about my all-time favorite movie . . . Juliet, Naked.

If you haven’t seen Juliet, Naked and don’t want to be spoiled on it before you do, please, go watch it! As of the date of this newsletter, I believe it’s still available on Amazon Prime. If you’ve already seen it or don’t care about spoilers and are willing to put up with my rambling, well . . . read on lol

First of all, I’ll acknowledge that this movie has a very weird title. It makes sense once you watch the movie, but yeah. Once my son said, “Isn’t your favorite movie Juliet, Naked?” in this tone like he was really catching me out in something, while still being at an age where you could tell he didn’t even quite know what he was catching me out in, just that “naked” is a funny word/concept.

Rose Byrne plays Annie, a British woman in her late ‘30s who’s just kind of . . . stuck. She’s lived in the same seaside town her whole life, works for the same museum where her dad worked before he died, and has been with the same guy for 15 years. Her boyfriend Duncan is played to hilarious pretentious perfection by Chris O’Dowd, and you instantly know his type — he teaches a course on “American Cinema and the Alienated Male” at the local college, and runs a fan site online dedicated to the music of Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke), a ‘90s indie singer-songwriter known for releasing his seminal break-up album Juliet and then basically disappearing from public life.

I mean. NO WONDER I like this movie so much. That entire set-up is my catnip. When I say I love celebrity romance what I REALLY mean is that I love “former celebrity is now a recluse” (Birds of California by Katie Cotugno); “person who used to be known for being Really Good at One Thing now isn’t and doesn’t know how to define themselves without it” (Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes); “person who has complicated relationship with fame has to find a way back to a healthy relationship with it” (Will They or Won’t They by Ava Wilder); and on and on.

(If you have any other book/movie recs in this vein, please. Lay ‘em on me.)

Anyway, one day Duncan is sent a rare demo version of Tucker’s album, called Juliet, Naked (Leo pointing meme!!!), and Annie opens it up first and listens to it before Duncan gets home.

The scene where he discovers what she’s done is HILARIOUSLY over the top. He tells her it “stinks of betrayal in here” and is desperate to find some batteries so he can go be alone with the CD on his discman. One of my favorite visual gags is the way she angrily takes the batteries out of her vibrator to give to him when he’s yelling about how there’s never any batteries. It’s so good.

A friend of mine — who knows my feral love of this movie and my openness to discussing the characters like they’re real people with the slightest provocation — recently texted me out of the blue to say if he’d gotten a CD in the mail with unreleased recordings from his favorite artist, he wouldn’t be upset if his wife opened it. And I was like . . . I hope I wouldn’t be as big of a wanker as Duncan is about it, but yeah, I would absolutely be upset lol. Not sure what that says about me. But if a never-before-heard acoustic Paramore demo ends up in the mailbox ADDRESSED TO ME then I would remind my husband that opening someone else’s mail is a FEDERAL OFFENSE and I’m not afraid to send my children’s father to prison.

The small intimacies in this movie are really good. Like even the circumstances in which Annie listens to the Tucker Crowe demo — wearing only her underwear because she was trying on a dress she’d ordered; crouched by her laptop on the bed while the CD plays through her speakers; the sad little dinner she put on the stove burning downstairs. It feels very homey and real.

Annie’s reaction to the demo is less-than-enthusiastic (“I should’ve warned you it was so dreary,” she says), which of course gets Duncan fired up anew. He posts a long review of the album to his Tucker Crowe fan site, and Annie drafts her own little comment in reply. (This scene is one of my favorites in the entire movie; Chris O’Dowd’s comic timing is impeccable as he realizes the comment was posted by her and reacts to it. The way he says “everyone’s entitled to their opinion . . .” and then under his breath, “. . . however unnuanced” absolutely kills me.)

But! In a surprising turn of events, TUCKER CROWE HIMSELF emails Annie about her comment! “Bingo,” he says. “You nailed it.” And we all know Ethan Hawke gives incredible Voiceover Rasp, but this is the Voiceover Rasp by which all others must be judged. He should’ve won an Oscar on that basis alone, as far as I’m concerned.

So thus begins Annie’s epistolary correspondence with Tucker. They share a lot about their lives — the mundane little moments like Annie putting together the Summer of ‘64 exhibit for the museum where she works, Tucker grocery shopping and making art with his young son, Jackson. But then it starts to get a little deeper. Tucker is self-deprecating about his past fame and obviously has a lot of Unresolved Issues about the way it all went down (me: presenting my vein for injection); Annie is worried she wasted some of the best years of her life standing still instead of taking risks.

Another small moment that stays with me — when Annie feels like she’s said too much and tries to take it back, and Tucker is like, “Sorry, too late. I opened it. I read it. And I loved it.” And the whole time, he’s just sitting in this grass, smiling down at his phone and casually scratching his leg. idk. Is there any better depiction of falling in love with someone through email than that?

In particular, Annie reveals that lately she’s felt an aching desire to have a child, which is something she knows Duncan doesn’t want. “I’m sorry about that ache,” Tucker says, and once again I’m sorry to Get Weird about Ethan Hawke’s rasp but the way he delivers this line is my personality, my sexuality, my curse, and my benediction. I have, no joke, thought about dedicating a book to that line.

Of course, what Annie’s doing is cheating-adjacent, if not outright emotional cheating. She’s telling Tucker things she hasn’t expressed to anyone else, including her boyfriend Duncan, and she definitely hasn’t told Duncan that she’s been emailing with his musical idol. I know that makes things messy, and I’m not saying it’s ideal behavior on Annie’s part . . . but Juliet, Naked is the kind of movie that doesn’t shy away from the fact that these are flawed, complex people, and so personally it doesn’t diminish my enjoyment of the romance.

Also, one thing romcoms LOVE to do is excuse one character’s cheating with cheating by their partner. (I’m thinking especially of You’ve Got Mail in this regard, but truly. It’s a whole trope.) So perhaps it’s not surprising that, while Annie is getting closer with Tucker via transatlantic emails, Duncan starts flirting with a junior faculty member at the college where he teaches (she teaches movement — not dance, don’t get it twisted). They sleep together, in large part (I’m convinced), because she lets him put on Juliet, Naked as seduction music and doesn’t say anything about how dreary it is.

Because Duncan’s head is up his own ass, he basically just . . . tells Annie over Indian food that he cheated on her, and hopes she can get past it to keep dating him because “right now, I think that’s how I’m leaning.” Annie leaves the restaurant in disgust, devastatingly leaving her chicken korma behind before she even took a bite. I’ve never been in her exact situation, but I sure hope if I am I have the emotional fortitude to wait while they package up my chicken korma.

Annie and Duncan break up — which means when it comes to Tucker it’s wide open, baby. Tucker’s older daughter who lives in London is having a baby, so Tucker makes plans to fly out with Jackson and meet up with Annie while he’s at it. “Are we fine as we are,” he emails, “or would you like to get a drink?” She’s adorably excited but tries to play it cool. She ends her email with “And congratulations, Grandpa!” in the loveliest, softest little voiceover that I think about all the time. (I think a lot about the voiceover in this film, if that’s not clear.)

So they have a date, to meet up at the Tate Modern at 5:00 p.m. Annie shows up with her hair all brushed out, wearing a pretty, spring-like dress, and then she just . . . waits. “Someone is stood up” scenes in movies/television KILL me. I almost can’t watch them. If they have to assure the waiter that their person is running late, should just be a few minutes. God forbid someone wants to use their extra chair and they have to insist that someone is coming to use it soon. K I L L S ME.

But Tucker actually has a good excuse! He had a heart attack! One thing I love about this movie is that these characters are older. They’ve lived life. They have long, complicated past relationships and in Tucker’s case, a shit-ton of kids from those relationships. They have biological clocks that are seriously ticking and tickers that have probably been put through the wringer, drugs- and alcohol-wise. I love when romance is about two people who find each other and in so doing find a better/truer/braver version of themselves, and I believe that can happen at any age. (btw two romances I read recently featuring more mature protagonists — Come As You Are by Jess Hardy; and Before I Let Go by Kennedy Ryan. Highly recommend both!!)

Tucker asks Annie if she’d be willing to meet him at the cardiology unit of the hospital instead, and she’s already grabbing her bag from the overhead compartment on the train, ready to make her way to him.

I’ve said this is my favorite movie, and of course, my “real” answer to that question varies by the day and the mood I’m in when asked. (A non-exhaustive list of other answers I’ve given, for example: This Is Spinal Tap, Mallrats, My Cousin Vinnie, She’s the Man, 10 Things I Hate About You, Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael, Titanic, yes I love Titanic unironically, Josie and the Pussycats, That Thing You Do!, While You Were Sleeping, etc. etc.). But this is a very safe answer to that question. I’ve never regretted saying it.

And similarly, I never know quite how to respond if asked my favorite actor or actress. There are so many I love, with performances that have really meant something to me. Rose Byrne is an angel and probably the only reason I watched every single episode of Damages and actually kinda enjoyed the Peter Rabbit movie. But when asked my favorite actor, I almost always say Ethan Hawke, and here’s one of the reasons why.

There’s this look on his face, when Annie walks into his hospital room and he first sees her. It’s the kind of look that makes me wish I was a better writer and could do it justice, because I’d write it into every single romance I ever wrote. She extends her hand and he shakes it, looking at her hand and then dragging his eyes to her face, like he’s allowing himself to really drink her in for a minute. She makes a joke about it being awkward and wishing they could email back and forth, he makes a joke about the internet being terrible in the hospital, she laughs disproportionately hard, and he just looks at her. It’s hard to sell “I fell half in love with you during our emails and in the last ten seconds I just fell all the rest of the way,” but god. Does he sell it.

Then there’s a scene that’s a masterclass of comedy and tension and exposition, as far as I’m concerned, where all of Tucker’s exes and children start arriving and it gets even more awkward. There’s his older daughter who just had the baby and is now suspicious that he only came to hook up with Annie and not for her at all; two twin sons whose mom flew them first-class from America because, as she puts it, they weren’t about to fly coach to watch their biological father die!; his other ex with her old British rocker-looking new beau who says casually at one point, “I’ve had three heart attacks and didn’t plan any of them”; there’s Jackson who gets anxious when Tucker starts raising his voice because the doctor told him he had to take it easy . . . it’s just a lot. During that chaos, Annie gives a little wave and backs her way toward the door, and Tucker wants to stop her but has to just watch helplessly from the hospital bed as she leaves.

Once his room has cleared out, Tucker calls her to apologize. “No, it was silly of me to come,” she says, and he insists, “It was kind of you to come.” Then he says, “One of the big problems with screwing up the first half of your life is, try as you might, you can’t press reset. I can’t get to zero, you know?”

That line gets stuck in my head a lot. I can’t get to zero, you know? Tucker Crowe is far from a perfect romance hero. He’s attractive (he’s Ethan Hawke), but he’s a little sloppy and casual in the way he dresses and carries himself. (One acting choice Ethan apparently made was to give Tucker a shuffling, loose kind of walk, and once I read that piece of trivia I always notice it.) At the start of the movie, he seems pretty aimless — happy to live on one of his ex’s properties and hang out with their son. At one point, he hands Jackson what clearly must be a royalty check that he signed over to Jackson’s mom for child support, and the kid’s basically like, “Where’d this come from? You don’t do anything.” Kids have a way of cutting right into whatever you’re most insecure about, and you can tell Tucker isn’t as sanguine about his laidback lifestyle as he pretends to be. “My guitar hasn’t been out of its case for years,” he tells Annie in one of his emails. This coming from a man for whom music was once his whole life. (INTO MY VEINS)

He’s also not a great dad. He hasn’t been present for most of his kids’ lives, and now he’s trying to make up for it with Jackson, but he knows it’s not enough. He WANTS to be better, though, and that really does count for a lot. He’s trying — sometimes he doesn’t read the room properly, makes jokes where he shouldn’t — but he’s trying.

There is one piece of trivia about this movie that I don’t like to tell people until after they’ve seen it, lest it distract while they’re watching. (It’s the kind of thing that would’ve distracted me, had I known.) Anyway this is my coy little way of saying that if you want to know what it is, just reply to this newsletter and I’ll tell you.

Tucker invites himself and Jackson to go back to Annie’s little seaside town with her, which is the perfect opportunity for me to tell you that my DREAM vacation is basically just to live inside this movie. Get me to the English seaside, let me drink cozy cups of tea, PLEASE. I have a list of filming locations from this movie saved in my draft emails and one day I’m going to go.

In general, I just love everything about the sets in this movie. When they arrive at Annie’s house, Jackson immediately corrals Annie to stand inside the bathroom while he pees (this is SUCH a sweet little kid thing to do, omg) while Tucker starts to explore. There’s such intimacy to a scene where one character steps foot in another character’s space for the first time. (Cold World has this moment for both Lauren and Asa!). And here, the creak of the floorboards, Tucker taking off his sunglasses while he ducks through the doorway and takes it all in. It’s perfect.

Until . . . Annie hears his footsteps going down the stairs, and all of a sudden she remembers the weird little fan shrine Duncan had created down there, wallpapered with old Tucker Crowe posters and outfitted with thoroughly cataloged shelves of every bootleg recording known to man. By the time she makes it downstairs, Tucker is crouched in front of an old picture. “That’s me . . . in my high school chess club,” he says with a raised eyebrow. She rushes to explain that it was ex-boyfriend’s doing, she’d never even heard of him before that, and then there’s this cute little flirty exchange between them where she assures him she’s not trying to “like, cut your head off or whatever” and he sits back on the couch and laughs up at her.

As a Florida girl, I’m kinda loving the “cardigan and jeans on the beach” look. THAT I could get behind.

Annie, Tucker, and Jackson go to the beach, where Duncan spots them while running with his new girlfriend. I read one review of this movie where the only fault they found was that they thought Annie was too passive, and they wanted her to stick it to Duncan more. I get it — personally, I like Annie’s character, I think her passivity for most of the movie is a key part of setting up her growth at the end, but who wouldn’t want her to stick it to Duncan?

I just think there’s something satisfying about the way it does go down. Duncan’s like, “ah shit — she saw me, if I blank her she’ll be devastated,” acting like he’s doing her some big favor by going over to talk to her at the beach. And then she introduces him to Tucker fucking Crowe. HIS idol.

Which Duncan doesn’t even believe at first! It takes him comparing an old photo of Tucker and then skulking around the house and peering in the window, before eventually EXAMINING TUCKER’S PASSPORT before he’s willing to grudgingly say, “There is a possibility that maybe I owe you an apology.” And I love Ethan Hawke’s delivery when he’s like, “Well, when will you know for sure?”

Because Annie is the Bigger Person, she invites Duncan to eat with them that night. The dinner is the MOST DELICIOUS LOOKING SPAGHETTI I’ve ever seen. Seriously. I dream about that spaghetti. It’s nothing that special — just pasta and a tomato sauce in a big bowl on the table, some crusty garlic bread on the side, and yet something about it looks so homey and domestic and comforting. I want that exact spaghetti served out of that exact bowl in that exact kitchen, I’m adding it to my travel list.

[This is another of my favorite scenes in the entire movie, so before I wax all poetic about it, I’m going to pause just to say I know this newsletter is HELLA long, Substack warned me it was going to get cut off in emails about a THOUSAND WORDS ago, this is one that my husband would say “Oh wow, that’s a longread,” about in a way where I can’t tell if it’s a good or a bad thing, my original intention believe it or not was just to say a few things I liked about the movie but then I was like, well, maybe I need to DESCRIBE THE ENTIRE MOVIE first. hahaha sorry but also this is a labor of love because I really am obsessed with this movie.]

At dinner, Duncan starts lightly quizzing Tucker because he just can’t help himself. Nick Hornby wrote the novel Juliet, Naked that the movie is based on, and it’s in scenes like this where you can really tell — Hornby has such a distinct way about writing about fandom, how obsessive we can get about our favorite things (vinyl records in High Fidelity for example, or a sports team in Fever Pitch). In this scene, Duncan really does see himself as an expert on Tucker Crowe, and he approaches conversation more like Tucker is an exhibit to be studied than a human being sitting in front of him. “Is it still raw?” he asks about the relationship at the heart of the Juliet record, with zero regard for how insensitive that question would be if it were still raw.

(I think about this all the time with famous people. Like of course WE’RE still talking about Jake and the red scarf, it’s all so ALIVE and IMPORTANT to us from listening to the same song over and over, but at this point it’s just a story. A memory, from a long time ago. When Taylor sings, “I was there,” we’re transported back there, too, we feel her loss as keenly as if it had happened to us. But that’s part of the songwriting craft, isn’t it?)

Duncan keeps going to talk about what a masterwork Juliet is, and that’s when Tucker gets really annoyed. He covers his son’s ears to say, “It’s clear that you don’t know shit,” and Duncan’s like, “Am I a fan? Guilty as charged,” and Tucker’s like, “If you can’t realize that Juliet is a piece of shit,” and Duncan sounds genuinely distraught when he says, “Don’t say that, you don’t mean that . . .”

Finally Tucker can’t take it any more. “It’s not worth the effort!” he says, his voice raised enough that it silences the whole table.

Then, after a beat, Duncan says — “It is to me.”

I love everyone in this scene. Annie is so protective, both of Tucker and his privacy, but also of her ex when she knows how much this all means to him, to have this chance to sit down with Tucker Crowe. Duncan is honestly at his most likable as a guy whose biggest crime is that he heard an album decades before and it changed his life. It’s physically painful, having to hear its creator denigrate this work that means so much to him. And Tucker obviously has such fucked up feelings about that part of his life that he can’t see it, he seems unable to look look his past in the eye and grapple with all the bad parts but all the good ones, too. Jackson is quiet and sensitive, the spaghetti STILL looks amazing even in the middle of the tension, it’s just a wonderful scene.

I won’t type out Duncan’s whole parting speech, but I will say that I find “art isn’t for the artist no more than water is for the bloody plumber” comforting on some level.

Sorry, Troy Dyer, now THIS is a man with a planet of regret on his shoulders!

And then Tucker and Annie are walking along the seaside again, and finally he opens up about the part of his past that clearly haunts him the most. He tells her about his relationship with Julie, the woman who inspired Juliet, and what happened when she brought their baby girl, Grace, to a show to meet him for the first time. He held her in his arms, and then he set her down in the bathroom sink and walked away.

“And then I couldn’t play any of those songs anymore . . . I couldn’t play these insipid self-pitying songs about Julie breaking my heart, you know, they were a joke.” And then he talks about holding Jackson in his arms decades later, and knowing he’s the last chance he has to make something right. “That’s a lot of pressure, for one little guy,” Annie says. Rose Byrne’s compassionate face is so good.

Later that night, Tucker goes outside to call Grace. He’s been running from this the whole movie, you can tell that as rough as his relationship with his other kids might be, Grace is the one he can’t forgive himself for. She’s so wary and careful on the phone when she answers. “I have a father already,” she says, and he says, “Okay, yeah, right, no, I understand.” But then — “When you say that, do you mean biologically?” She pauses a moment, and then says, “I’m not sure the distinction you’re making?”

I looked up the actress who provided the voice of Grace on the phone once, just because I wanted to tell her how much I loved the way she delivered that line. It’s not angry, really. She says before hanging up that she’s at work, and has to go, and that’s the way she talks through the whole conversation — quietly, as though she can’t raise her voice or fully engage and also she doesn’t know if she even wants to. She’ll think about this call, later. Maybe she is angry. Maybe she has things she’ll want to say. But for now, she’s grown up and doing just fine and she doesn’t know him at all and doesn’t feel the need to be part of whatever journey he’s on. Someone else helped raise her, and it wasn’t him.

I never did have the chance to say any of that to the actress, but yeah, I think she did a great job! And I love that the scene isn’t about him getting resolution with Grace — that would be too easy, too false. It’s just about him finally reaching out to her.

Ooof, okay. We leave the heavy part of the story to go to Annie’s big museum exhibit for the Summer of ‘64. The Mayor who she’s been working with on this exhibit is a great side character I haven’t had the chance to talk about, but everything he says is gold. He way overinflates Tucker’s importance, for example, and completely discounts it when Tucker turns down a beer and says he’s an alcoholic. “I’m not getting a famous American rock star a glass of water — red or white?” he blusters. (Don’t worry, Tucker does get his glass of water.)

Annie also finally gets up the courage to out-and-out proposition Tucker, and it’s so cute. She bumbles all over asking him if he’d be interested in her, you know . . . sexually, and he’s like, “I’m extremely interested.” He says he would’ve been more assertive, except his ego had taken a bit of a beating after his heart attack, and she’s like, “I did look up that side of things on the internet . . . the thing is, I have to do most of the work.” He gives a very charming little laugh and says, “That’s the way I’ve always done it,” and normally a man just straight admitting he’s lazy in bed would probably be a turn-off but WHAT CAN I SAY Ethan is really making it work here.

The jukebox goes out and the Mayor gets the bright idea to invite this “multiple Grammy award-winning” (not true) artist “from this era” (not true!) Tucker Crewe (haha not his name!!) up to perform. I LOVE scenes in movies where a character performs in front of a crowd. The nerves, the secret messages that can be conveyed in that performance, the significance of a song choice . . . it all does something for me. (I wrote a karaoke scene into Cold World for this very reason!).

Tucker’s cover of “Waterloo Sunset” is a nice callback to an observation he makes earlier in the movie, a tiny little message to Annie about how he’s felt spending time with her. It’s also the first time he’s probably performed in front of people in . . . decades. The part that always gets to me about this particular scene is the way Jackson watches him, holding his little plate of food, his eyes so bright and adoring as he watches his dad actually do the thing he’s always kinda heard he did once. It’s a really beautiful moment.

How cute are they!

My friend saw this movie in the theater before I did, and she KNOWS ME WELL because the way she got me to see it — she didn’t tell me anything about the actual plot. I went into this movie with almost zero idea of what it was about. She just told me that there was this moment, where Ethan Hawke is about to head into the kitchen, and he stops in the doorway for a moment and takes this shuddering breath. And only after that pause does he come into the kitchen, his most charming smile on, and take the glass out of Annie’s hand to pull her in for a kiss. It’s a top movie kiss. Doesn’t get talked about enough, in my book.

After they’ve gone upstairs (clearly to have that sex they outlined at the museum — I love me a plan!), Jackson wakes up sick and climbs the stairs to find his dad. You can hear Tucker and Annie laughing through the door, and the way Tucker says, “buddy, c’mon, time for bed!” only to come rushing out when Jackson says he threw up on the couch . . . I just love this moment because goddamn if that isn’t so true. You’re just like, trying to low-key blow off your kid so you can get back to your own adult time, but then it turns out they NEED you need you, and not just in a “I’m whining about going to bed kind of way.” That’s always the way it happens!

There’s a lovely domestic little scene where Annie makes Jackson a “clever cup of tea,” as her dad used to say, and she’s wearing Tucker’s shirt and he’s got Jackson in his lap and is stroking his son’s hair while he looks at Annie like she hung the moon. But it’s also when Jackson asks when they’re going to go home, and you’re reminded that this time hasn’t been real, it’s just been a brief little blip and what’s going to happen when he goes back to America and she goes back to her regular life?

Tucker clearly wants to try a long-distance thing, but she doesn’t, and so she says a very measured goodbye to him and then ends up crying in her car.

Except! Cut to a year later, and “Brass in Pocket” is playing over shots of London. Always a good sign! That’s an UPBEAT song! Things can’t be too bad if “Brass in Pocket” is on! Some voiceover narration of email exchanges reveals that they did keep in touch, and that Annie moved to London and got a job at a “cool little gallery” (the way she says it makes me feel very thirty, flirty, and thriving! suddenly I want a job in a cool little gallery). She’s making moves to have a baby on her own, like she’d thought about while she was still with Duncan. And Tucker is back in London, and wants to know if he can see her.

She pauses on the street, looking VERY Kerry Russell chic with her little updo, and spots Tucker through the window of a cafe. He sees her and stands, his face lighting up. She smiles and crosses the street.

A few random things because apparently I haven’t exhausted what I can say about this movie:

• I think when I’ve recommended this movie to a few people, they’re a little surprised that it’s considered a romantic comedy. It does have some heavy shit in it! And the humor can be quite dry, in a British sort of way. But this is basically EXACTLY the kind of romantic comedy I love and aspire to write. One that’s real and heartfelt and not afraid to Get Into It sometimes, but also has sharp dialogue and funny side characters and light-hearted moments.

• Like I didn’t even have the chance to talk about Annie’s sister Ros, but she has so many great lines. “Nothing screams repressed lesbian like having a husband and two kids!”

• There’s also so much more with Duncan and his fan site that really cracks me up. There’s also this part where he’s going through the TV Guide with Annie and is like, “I must put it in the diary . . . to fucking miss it,” that I quote all the time.

• It’s obviously played up for laughs, but I also can’t say I don’t relate to Duncan when he wants to put on his Tucker Crowe records for people and have them really sit and listen. I’m too polite to do that to my guests (and rarely have guests tbh), but the DESIRE is there. There’s this hilarious moment toward the beginning, where Ros brings her girlfriend over, and Duncan brings her down to his Tucker Crowe shrine. “That’s him,” he says, pointing to a poster. “Wow, he’s so gorgeous,” she says, and he looks at the picture and says, “Thank you,” with the reverence of someone showing off a baby photo or something. Like he has anything to do with how gorgeous Tucker is! And yet sometimes when I’m in a bad mood I watch “vocal coaches react to Hayley Williams vocals” just so I can bask in the glow of someone marveling at her talent lol

This newsletter has taken me so long I started it on Tuesday night and am getting it out technically into Thursday, but oh well! Man, I really hope I make my actual novel deadline, because something tells me “here’s 5,700 words about Juliet, Naked in lieu of the missing chapters” isn’t going to cut it.

Currently reading . . . I’m in the middle of A Love by Design by Elizabeth Everett. I love Elizabeth’s writing so much! The perfect blend of heart and humor, witty dialogue, sexual tension, her books have it all. This may be my favorite of hers so far, and that’s saying a lot.

watching . . . The kids and I have started watching Nailed It! We’re late to this train, I know, but we’re having a lot of fun. There was this black licorice pretzel snake thing from one episode that had us literally rolling on the floor, it looked like such a child’s terrible art project compared to how it was supposed to look.

listening to . . . first The Cranberries, now Counting Crows . . . I’m basically moving through the male characters’ in Clueless’ musical taste. Holla at me if you get this reference!